1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to media production, and more specifically, to a system, method and computer program product for providing educational training about live or live-to-tape media production techniques.
2. Related Art
The broadcast industry today is going through dramatic changes due to regulatory requirements for digital transmissions and competition from both traditional and nontraditional industry sectors. Traditional competitors such as cable have coexisted with broadcasters due to both mandated and agreed upon “must carry” rules that allow local broadcast stations to access cable networks. Nontraditional transmission mediums now exist due to the emergence of digital broadcast satellite (DBS) and Internet Service Providers (ISP).
As more and more households adopt nontraditional transmission mediums, the competition for consumer attention will continue to increase. Currently, the unique advantage that broadcasters have is local origination, especially from news. However, competition continues to develop for major network (i.e., ABC®, NBC® and CBS®) affiliates due to FOX®, UPN® and other startups for cable services and Internet multicasts (including webcasts). In addition, in the foreseeable future, digital transmission signals may be divided into separate channels for multicasting applications, thereby permitting major networks to step into the local origination market. In addition, newspapers, radio stations and other entities are competing for awareness and market share on the Internet. Television broadcasters are putting forth an effort to also maintain a local market share on the Internet but have yet to leverage successfully their best asset, i.e. video.
All of these issues present new obstacles that must be overcome by all broadcasters. These issues involve transitioning to digital broadcasts; leveraging automation to resolve the reallocation of resources to generate more content at lower operating expenses; creating an Internet presence to leverage their video assets; multicasting to add programming diversity and revenue; using computer networking to adapt streamlined approaches for field acquisition, pre-production, editing, and on-air execution of the show; and maintaining on-air systems through system redundancy.
One significant obstacle facing the broadcasting industry is education. Many progressive ownership groups are quickly educating their general managers, news directors and broadcast engineers about the issues outlined above. Producers and directors must also be reeducated to understand new processes and technology. Moreover, the broadcast industry must recruit new personnel well trained in new technology to remain competitive.
Consequently, educational institutions are being challenged to meet the demands of the broadcast industry for graduates well versed in digital, automation, multicasting (including, webcasting), and networking, along with work flow processes that leverage this technology. Thus, the expectation for today's students is to understand not only the artistic aspects of broadcast productions as producers and directors, but also the processes that must be implemented to leverage technology in order to successfully compete in the industry. Many of today's curriculums do not present or provide awareness for these challenges. Today's colleges and universities are limited and do not have access to nontraditional automation equipment, curriculums and teaching tools that focus on new technology.
With respect to nontraditional equipment, most schools have multistation production environments that include a separate video switcher, audio mixer, video/tape recorders (VTRs), character generators, camera control units and manually controlled cameras. Schools will be challenged to keep this equipment and train on past, present and future production techniques by purchasing a separate digital automation control room.
Regarding the school curriculums, most text books used in colleges and universities still do not cover all aspects of the digital transition and leveraging of automation for single and multichannel operations and Internet multicasting. Many cover digital fundamentals but limit the discussion to equipment without extensive workflow changes and equipment architecture that focuses on automation. In addition, many focus strictly on the postproduction non-linear aspects of digital equipment without discussing the effects on the live production process, not to mention workflow changes required to address the Internet.
As for teaching tools, standard textbook instruction limits the teacher's ability to remain updated in real time. In addition, students learn more through exposure to multimedia tools with on-demand quizzing. Nontraditional media intensive methods are needed as the industry becomes more complex and diverse and also to assist the instructor. Instructional media tools, such as CD-ROM and interactive Internet tutorials with text, video and dynamic graphic presentations, can become the standard as more students and campuses gain Internet access to the home, classroom and dormitory.
Schools are being challenged to educate students for other aspects of the broadcast production process and environment, including news automation, Internet multicasting, master control automation (i.e., scheduling programming with commercial insertions), and media management automation (i.e., video and other media server networking and technology for database management, archiving and editing).
Therefore, what is needed is a media production educational system and method that addresses the above problems.